A Money Windfall Even When You Spend It - 4
"Mr. Kim, it's time for the evening meal. Allow me to guide you to the dining hall."
Director Monk's voice came from outside the door.
"Yes, just a moment, please."
I quickly changed into the monastic robes I'd been given for the temple stay. The jacket was lined with padding, so it was wonderfully warm.
Do I have to wear the rubber sandals too?
My feet would freeze, so I skipped them, tucked the sandals into their plastic bag, set it by the door, and called out.
"Coming out now."
When I stepped into the corridor, the Director Monk greeted me with a gentle smile.
"The robes suit you wonderfully. Anyone might mistake you for a novice on his way to the Sangha College."
"Excuse me?"
The Sangha College was an educational institution of the Jogye Order, where one studied the Buddhist scriptures while devoting oneself to practice and discipline.
Every monk we typically meet at temples, after all, is a graduate of the Sangha College. In other words, they were all university-educated men.
And you'd have to be an exceptional student just to become the Director Monk or Abbot of a thousand-year-old temple like this.
Those who failed to distinguish themselves in their studies found it difficult even to secure a post as a salaried monk at a smaller temple.
Competition is everywhere, it seems.
Which made sense — how could a man who couldn't memorize the sutras and shirked his duties ever be trusted to lead the assembly toward enlightenment?
"Doesn't the Abbot come down from the hermitage? I heard someone else leads the evening service."
"That's right. The Abbot attends only the dawn service. He hasn't missed a single one in ten years."
"That's truly remarkable."
"It is. I only pray he stays well. He's been worrying himself terribly over this whole affair."
We walked along the path toward the dining hall. In the old days, the stone lanterns would have been lit with candles or oil, but a streetlamp had been installed right beside the path to protect the cultural heritage. As I followed its soft glow, something suddenly came back to me, and I asked the Director Monk.
"I've heard that prayers at Wolsang Temple actually come true. The Joseon-era records even describe it as a place where one's wishes are granted through devotion."
"Ah, you mean the old saying — that a noblewoman unable to conceive who prays at Wolsang Temple will bear a son?"
Honestly, I'd only circled around the topic because it was hard to bring up directly, yet he understood me perfectly.
"Yes. I believe I saw a record to that effect."
"That tradition is said to trace back to the temple's very construction, and the many devotees who offered prayers during it."
"There were devotees praying during the construction?"
Shouldn't it be the other way around — a temple gets built first, and only then do the faithful gather?
There couldn't possibly have been Buddhist devotees out here in these layered mountains, far from any village. Seeing my puzzled expression, the Director Monk asked with a smile.
"Mr. Kim, have you ever heard the story of Asadal and Asanyeo?"
"Of course. The tale of Asadal, who built the Seokgatap Pagoda at Bulguksa, and his wife Asanyeo is famous enough."
Asadal was the finest stonemason in all of Silla. He left home to build the Seokgatap Pagoda at Bulguksa. Barely days after their wedding, her husband departed for work, and Asanyeo offered prayers every single day, begging for his safe return. But three years passed and Asadal did not come home, so she made her way to Bulguksa itself.
But even the artisans carving the stone towers were kept apart from women and forbidden meat, so the two never managed to meet.
Asanyeo couldn't set so much as a single foot inside the temple grounds. When she was told she could only see her husband once the pagoda was finished, she went to Yeongji Pond beside Bulguksa and waited there for the pagoda's reflection to appear on the water. But no matter how long she waited, Asadal never came. Consumed by longing and despair, she threw herself into the pond and drowned. When Asadal at last completed the pagoda, he rushed to the pond — only to find his wife already gone from this world. As he wailed in grief, a rock by the water seemed to take on his wife's shape, and he took up his chisel and hammer and began to carve. When the carving was done, he cast himself into the pond to follow her in death. And so the Seokgatap came to be called the Pagoda of No Shadow, because it cast none. Even today, by Yeongji Pond near Bulguksa, there stands a seated stone Buddha whose maker remains unknown.
The reason such a legend took root must be the staggering amount of time and sacrifice that went into raising even a single stone pagoda.
Bulguksa itself had taken some twenty-three years to complete. So the Seokgatap Pagoda must have taken ten years or more of painstaking work on its own. Life expectancy in Silla wasn't anywhere near what it is now — some say the average in Joseon times didn't even reach forty, and Silla was likely shorter still. It would be no exaggeration to say people poured their entire lives into a single tower.
"A similar story has been passed down here at Wolsang Temple."
The Director Monk stopped walking and gazed at something beyond the temple wall as he continued.
"When the craftsmen were conscripted from Gyeongju to build Wolsang Temple, they put up huts on the mountainside within sight of the temple grounds, and the craftsmen's wives offered their prayers from there."
Like Asadal and Asanyeo — in that era, being drafted for a great national project meant eternal separation. The wives may well have known they would never see their husbands alive again.
There must have been accidents too. Far more than one or two would have died or been injured.
Perhaps it was simply this: if the men could never come home once they left, then the families would live as close as they could.
"So the whole family came all the way up here, only to live a living death separated by a single temple wall."
"Yes, exactly. But look — see how treacherous the mountain is. I fear the families who prayed for the safety and health of the men working inside those walls died before the men themselves did."
The cold, the hunger, the attacks of wild beasts. For any number of reasons, the families camped outside the temple wall would have met far different fates.
The Director Monk pointed toward something dimly visible beyond the wall, illuminated by the light of the bell tower.
"After the temple was completed, they raised a stone pagoda and a Buddha statue on the mountainside to console the souls of the craftsmen's families."
At those words, an involuntary aigoo escaped my lips.
The temple construction is finally done, and now they have to build ANOTHER pagoda and statue? What sin did these artisans commit!
I could almost hear their hearts crying — please, just let it end, I want to go home.
Then a thought flashed through my mind, and I asked the Director Monk.
"Could the person who made the Buddha statue placed on the mountainside be the same one who carved the statue at the hermitage where the Abbot resides?"
"I honestly couldn't say. The statue was stolen long ago — only the stone pagoda remains."
So the grave robbers made off with the statue as well. Still, I felt I needed to visit that place. The artisan who carved the Cheonjinam Buddha — or perhaps his family — might be lingering there as earthbound spirits.
"When the first service was held before the Buddha upon the completion of Wolsang Temple, many auspicious things occurred — one record even says light poured forth from that very stone pagoda, illuminating the whole area."
"Light came from the pagoda?"
"Yes. I believe that's what gave rise to the enduring belief that prayers offered at Wolsang Temple are granted."
I once read an article saying that after the 9/11 attacks, violent crime actually dropped worldwide. There was even a paper arguing that people who witness catastrophes with their own eyes pause to reflect on what truly matters in life, and redesign how they live.
When the artisans poured their very lives into carving the Buddha and stacking the stone pagoda, perhaps their families watching from beyond the wall felt something similar.
No one could have endured it otherwise without turning their heart into the Buddha's own.
Emptying the mind, and emptying it again — that is the stage of devotion. Perhaps, praying not for themselves but for others, they had arrived at a kind of enlightenment after all.
If I entered this food in a temple cuisine competition, it would place top three at least, wouldn't it?
The dinner at Wolsang Temple was nothing more than multigrain rice, soybean paste soup, and mountain herbs — but the generous use of perilla oil gave it a nutty, savory depth that was simply exquisite.
After the meal, once the Director Monk and every other monk had retired to their quarters, I quietly set off up the mountain path.
Lights-out is at nine, so I'd better hurry up and back.
A stone stairway led all the way up to the pagoda said to stand on the mountainside. They told me it had 108 steps — a symbol, I was told, of casting off the 108 earthly afflictions of humankind.
Whoever built these stairs must have suffered for it too.
Nearing the top of the staircase, I saw it — a modest stone pagoda.
"Ah! So this really is where they've gathered."
Children, women, the elderly — the artisans' families, it seemed, were circling around the stone pagoda.
"Have you all been here for a thousand years? The artisans wander inside the temple walls, and the families wander here on the mountainside. This isn't right."
I resolved to send every soul wandering this place to the afterlife tonight, and approached. And then —
"That earring!"
There was a woman wearing the very earring from the photograph the Abbot had shown me at Cheonjinam Hermitage. Only one earring — perhaps it had been some kind of token, a pledge between them?
"Madam — is your husband one of the artisans who carved the Buddha statue?"
When I came near and spoke, she looked at me and gave a deep, slow nod.
"I thought so."
Most likely, the artisan had carved the earring from jade and asked a servant who brought provisions to the temple to deliver it to his wife. Receiving the single earring, she must have wept with joy at the proof that her husband still lived. And then she would have clutched its missing twin, praying for the day he came home — a day, perhaps, that never came.
That's why you're still waiting here.
Just then, a child who looked to be about five came walking toward me. When the little one spread both arms wide, asking to be held, I bent down, and the child climbed up my arm. Nestled against me, the child gazed toward the inside of the temple wall and gestured with a small hand.
"Daddy works over there. Daddy doesn't even know I was born."
The woman with the earring hurried over, took the child from me, and began circling the stone pagoda with the little one in her arms.
I see. So the artisan was sneaking over the wall — that's how he got this far.
If a child had been conceived that way and born, then the artisan must have been desperate to finish the Buddha statue and get back outside the wall as quickly as possible. But the work never ended. And then, to top it off, he was made to carve a statue to console the souls of all who had died on this mountain —
It must have felt like coughing up blood.
The statue, of course, had already been stolen. I drew near the stone pagoda and reached out my hand. And then I saw him — a man weeping before where the statue once stood. His hair had gone bone-white, and with fingers worn down to nothing he beat the ground and wailed in grief. And in his hands — two earrings. Had the earrings meant for his wife only become a pair after she was already gone?
Behind the weeping man, snow was settling, white and silent.
"I put the earring inside the pagoda."
At the voice that came suddenly from behind me, I turned to find Monk Bo-eun standing there.
"You were able to speak all along?"
"I was under a vow of silence, but I have chosen to break it for your sake. Is not compassion a greater precept than any rule?"
Monk Bo-eun gestured toward the stone pagoda.
"The couple's remains were cremated and scattered upon this mountain. And the earrings — one placed within the stone pagoda, one within the Buddha statue — so that husband and wife alike might be granted passage to Paradise. And yet..."
"You never knew about the child, did you?"
"I did not. I took the other children in as my young acolytes and cared for them, but of Moodol's child I knew nothing."
Moodol, then, was the name of the artisan who had carved the Buddha statue.
He probably hid it as thoroughly as he could. And by the time you learned Moodol had a family, he was likely already gone from this world.
"The fault is mine."
Monk Bo-eun grieved that despite a thousand years of chanting to soothe the dead, every one of them still wandered the nine realms.
Does chanting as a spirit actually work? Then you ought to lead by example, Master.
I spoke to Monk Bo-eun.
"My knowledge is shallow, I know — but couldn't wandering the nine realms like this also be a way of repaying karma? Still, a thousand years is far too long."
"It is. It has been far, far too long."
"Tonight, I will send them all to the afterlife. May I?"
Monk Bo-eun looked out over the people circling the pagoda and the temple grounds beyond, and then nodded.
"I entrust them to you."
Having nodded, he spoke again.
"Open the stone pagoda for me. Take out the earring within, and make it a pair with the one that was lost — let them never be parted again."
So the only treasure at Wolsang Temple the grave robbers never touched would turn out to be another earring, wouldn't it?